Family Pictures

Last weekend we snuck-out to capture Peyton at 3-years, Garrison at 3-months, updated family pictures and an updated picture with Grammy & Grandpa to include Mr. Garrison. Here are just a few of my favorites!

Weekly Happenings - 10/24 - 10/30

1. Monday marked my first day back at work. It wasn't easy to go back but I am positive that it is best for everyone in the family. Although I started back on Monday, Garrison enjoyed one more week at home with Grammy & Grandpa (Monday-Wednesday) and Daddy (Thursday-Friday). Grandma & Grandpa Todd also came-up on Thursday for a visit. Needless to say, Garrison had an excellent last week at home and is excited to start school tomorrow, well, I'm sure he would be if he knew what was going on! :)

Peyton was excited to be picked-up early several days this past week with all of her visiting grandparents. Of course, as soon as she got home she was ready to drive her car. She is getting quite good at driving her car and has even been promoted to being a fast driver when Daddy took out the screw that was holding her to 2.5 MPH - look-out as Peyton now travels at 5 MPH! On Tuesday night, Peyton even helped with dinner by decorating Halloween cookies with Grammy (pic below) - she even passed them out after dinner. Peyton is happiest when she can help!

Here are just a couple of pictures from early this week.

2. On Friday, our neighbors invited us over for dinner and a pumpkin carving party - what a great idea!! I was nursing Garrison during the pumpkin carving part of the party but hope to get a few pictures from our friends' cameras. We had a great evening full of playing, eating, visiting and of course pumpkin carving! Garrison loved being in the middle of all the action with several of the kids. Amazingly he was never stepped on!

3. On Saturday we had a new dining partner join our family table - that's right, Garrison is now sitting in his high chair. He isn't quite ready to eat yet but seemed to enjoy getting to participate in our family meals.

4. Peyton's Halloween party is on Monday so we put her treat bags together today for all of her classmates. We also made treats to share with her classmates - witches hats! Peyton was an excellent helper and unwrapped all of the kisses and even helped assemble the hats. Can you tell she was quite proud of our end product?!

5. Happy 3 month birthday, Garrison! Saturday was Garrison's 3-month birthday and today we took his picture with Mickey - our little guy is growing up too fast!!

6. We had a really relaxing weekend with not a lot going on - the best kind! Check-out the pure joy on this little girl's face!

7. This weekend also brought something that completely warmed my heart - while I was putting Peyton to bed on Friday night as I walked out the door I heard, "Mommy, I love you." Don't get me wrong, she has told me she loves me before but the completely unsolicited nature of the I love you and her tone just made me melt. My little girl is so very precious - I can't believe she is almost 3!!!

Weekly Happenings - 10/17 - 10/23

1. This was my last week home on maternity leave and I think it went the fastest of all of my weeks off. :( Although I'm sad that my one-on-one time with Garrison has come to an end I can look back and know that these last 12 weeks have been an amazing opportunity for me to connect with my little man and I will cherish them always! We had a busy last week - Monday Daddy took the day off for an extended birthday weekend, Tuesday & Wednesday Grammy visited and helped me with getting a few more "projects" done before I head back to work, Thursday we had our new furniture delivered and Friday was just a quiet day for the two of us - a perfect end to the week! Whew! Now, do I really have to go back to work tomorrow?!?!


2. What else can I say other than my whole world is in this chair - priceless!!


3. Peyton told me on Friday that she learned about dinosaurs this week at school - not sure if she did or not but our dinner on Friday night would have fit in with this theme as we dined at T-Rex. We had an awesome dinner and Peyton loved when the dinosaurs came alive every 20 minutes. We even splurged on this awesome dessert!



4. Princess Peyton was invited to a birthday party for one of her classmates on Saturday morning and she decided to dress as Tinkerbell for the party. Isn't she darling?? Princess Aurora even came to the party - Peyton wasn't sure what to think about Aurora for most of the party but did join in toward the end. The second picture was our attempt at capturing all of the princesses at once - quite a feat I must say! I think Peyton enjoyed the Castle Bounce House the most but was still talking about the whole party on Sunday!





5. And our princess needed some rest after such a fun morning, even though she didn't think so! We told her she didn't have to sleep but needed to stay on her bed and be quiet for a while. About 20 minutes after these instructions she passed out while reading her books - so cute!



6. Grammy & Grandpa came up for a visit on Saturday afternoon / evening. Since we are still enjoying some beautiful weather, Peyton got to "open" her birthday present a little early so that she can enjoy learning how to drive her car before the weather turns cold. She wasn't quite sure what to think of her car at first but now she LOVES it! After a short visit we headed out to take family pictures and Peyton's 3-year-old and Garrison's 3-month-old pictures. The place was beautiful and I can't wait to see how they turned out! We wrapped-up the evening with dinner at a new restaurant at Park Place to celebrate Daddy's birthday and pumpkin frozen yogurt (Peyton's reward for taking such great pictures). We had a great time!





7. What happens when you walk away from a toddler & her baby brother for about 2 minutes?? Stickers all over said baby's face - hilarious!!!



8. We continued our fun weekend with a day on Sunday spent almost entirely outside. I can't believe it was almost hot enough today to think about turning the air back on - crazy for late October!! Peyton gave several of her friends rides in her new car, rode bikes/trikes, colored with lots of chalk and enjoyed our neighborhood fall festival. While at the fall festival Peyton rode the ponies twice and we all took a hayride. We are all exhausted after spending so much time outside but it was totally worth it!








So with that, I need to sign-off to get ready to head back to work tomorrow morning. My plan is to work-out in the mornings which means my alarm will be sounding shortly before 5 AM - oh my!

Weekly Happenings - 10/10 - 10/16

1. Garrison continues to develop and interact more and more every day, it is the best!! I can't believe that I only have one more week at home with him! :S We are so lucky to have a little guy that sleeps through the night so well - 8-10 hours every night, can't beat it!

2. Saturday we had the chance to celebrate the anticipated arrival of Chad's cousin's first baby, a little girl. Peyton was super excited to go to the shower and we were excited to get to introduce baby Garrison to several of Chad's family members. Great Aunts Shelly & Diane even got a little cuddle time with our little guy. I think he looked quite dapper in his shower outfit, too! After the shower, Grandpa joined in the fun with dinner out at Olive Garden to celebrate Daddy's birthday - Peyton LOVES the Olive Garden! :)

3. Sunday was Daddy's birthday and when I asked Peyton what she wanted to make for Daddy she decided on blue cupcakes with blue frosting. As you can see below, Peyton taste tested the frosting a time or two (or five!). After lunch we lit candles and sang Happy Birthday to Daddy and Peyton helped him blow out the candles - great practice for her birthday coming up next month!

4. Sunday was not only Daddy's birthday but a gorgeous day to play outside so we spent a lot of the day outside. One of the best games of the day was "run around the diamond" where Daddy had drawn huge diamonds on the driveway - Peyton and all of the neighborhood kids had a blast running laps around the diamond. Gotta love cheap entertainment! Peyton also decided to give her roller skates that Grammy & Grandpa had given her for Christmas last year a try. She had a blast, as did Kylie, her friend - Daddy got the chance to practice putting the skates on the two girls as they wanted to share with each other about every 2 minutes! :)

5. Peyton has been growing through a growth spurt and definitely is turning into a preschooler versus a toddler (where did my baby go??!?!). Here is a picture where she is showing a little attitude but looks so tall and slender - what a big girl!

Weekly Happenings - 10/3 - 10/9

1. Garrison started consistently sleeping through the night - YEA!!!! Although Garrison had slept through the night from time to time before this past week he is now doing it pretty much every night, for which this Mommy is very thankful! He has been going down between 9-9:30 and sleeping all the way until at least 6 and sometimes as late as 7! Now, if only we can keep this up when I go back to work in a couple of weeks! :)

2. The week for our family was pretty quiet - Daddy played in two golf tournaments on Thursday & Friday so he had a short work week which was nice! The weather is still gorgeous so we are spending most of our evenings outside since that cold weather is for sure on its way!

3. Daddy took on a BIG project for his princess over the weekend - he repainted her room. I know this may not sound like a big deal but Daddy made Peyton's room super special, check-out the pictures!! Her room isn't completely done as she is getting new furniture delivered in the next couple of weeks but I think the painting turned out GREAT!! Peyton was quite excited and surprised when she came home to find her room.

4. While Daddy was busy working on Peyton's room, Peyton, Garrison & I were busy playing at Grammy & Grandpa's!! We had a busy but super fun visit which included a birthday celebration for Great Grandma Mintun (her 83rd!) on Friday night with Uncle Mark & Aunt Mary who came into town, a fun Saturday morning of playing at Grammy & Grandpa's and a trip to the park and a dip in the indoor pool after nap time! Whew! Peyton is always happiest when she is on the go so she had a fun weekend and Garrison is so flexible that he just goes with the flow, what a great baby!

5. Sunday morning we woke-up and had a relaxing morning before having an early lunch with Great Grandma. After lunch we headed home with Grammy & Grandpa so that we could pick-up Daddy and go to the Pumpkin Patch. This hear we headed to the KC Pumpkin Patch and Peyton had a great time (Garrison slept the entire trip!). Peyton loved the slides the best I think but also enjoyed the "train" ride, climbing on the spider web, digging for dinosaur bones and in general running around to see what was available - we had a great afternoon at the pumpkin patch!

6. Since Grammy & Grandpa were in town Chad & I had a chance to go out for a date night while they stayed with the kiddos - first time we have left both of them since Garrison joined our family. Here's a picture of Peyton & Garrison while we were gone - I love it!! Peyton played a ton outside and Garrison took his bottles really well, music to this Mommy's ears! While they had fun at home with the grandparents we enjoyed our quiet dinner out and even finished our evening at Cheesecake Factory for an awesome piece of chocolate cake/cheesecake - YUM!